


Flit

by Anythingtoasted



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Trueform Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-04-27
Packaged: 2017-12-08 01:09:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/755219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anythingtoasted/pseuds/Anythingtoasted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>from a prompt on tumblr. four parts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They found poor Jimmy’s hollowed out body at the door – eyes open, knees splayed; palms facing the sky.

For a moment, Dean stood looking down at it. At the shell of their friend, face pallid, gaze listless and unseeing, reflecting blue. He bent down, and took the body in his arms, and it was limp; not hard, not stinking sloppy wet, like bodies could be; it was still and cool, as if preserved. As if he’d just been left there, dropped to the ground like a ragdoll – he seemed to weigh little more than that.

Dean lifted him into his arms – jostled the man, suit-clad, his pants ripped, his trenchcoat slipping from his shoulders – and wordlessly shouldered the door to the Headquarters open, Sam voicing his concern with his footsteps, following carefully behind.

They got inside and there was endless, pooling silence; Dean said nothing. He went to the couch, laid Jimmy’s body out on it, his pale hands folded against his stomach, thin delicate bones of them lax against the his shirt.

They looked at each other – Dean opened his mouth – and then shut it again.

“It’s not him.” He said, suddenly, assuredly, and Sam opened his mouth to protest.

“Dean-“ he walked over, put a hand on his brother’s shoulder, but Dean shrugged him off.

“No, I’m serious.” He looked around, fast, like a man hallucinating, like he was seeing visions of Castiel. “He’s here.”

“Dean, he- you can  _see him.”_

“Shut up.” He muttered, and pushed past, into the middle of the room. He looked around quickly, ignoring the cold body on the couch, and then pushed his way down the hallways, Sam tripping after, calling his name. Dean reached the end of the hallway – reached the entrance to his room, his bed half-made from that morning, his clothes strewn around – and stopped. He threw his arm out to stop Sam from crashing into him, and the two of them stood in the hallway, looking into the room.

“Cas?” Dean said, first, and Sam looked at him like he was crazy.

The thing in the room looked like a will-o’-the-wisp, almost; like a tiny lantern-light, blue and  _pulsing,_ roughly the same size, and shape, as a human heart. Dean said his name, again, quieter.

 The light ebbed gently – the shadows it cast on the walls were like those from dark water; light-blue veins, lights like on the sides of a cavern, or on swimming-pools. If he’d inhaled deep enough, Dean could swear he smelt chlorine. “Cas?” He stepped forward – Sam caught his arm, held him fiercely back – then looked at the light a little longer, and his fingers, on Dean’s arm, went loose.

“Shit.” Dean murmured, and walked all the way over to it – it brushed forward to meet him, its edges blurry like heat-haze, light brighter in the centre, but much, much duller than you’d expect, from a fucking  _angel._ Dean held out his cupped hands, and Castiel – for it had to be him, felt like  _nothing else –_ drifted over them, the heat from him, dry, like standing in front of flames. “You gave us a scare, you son of a bitch.” Dean murmured, but there was a smile in his voice, a smile on his face, as well. The light fluttered – irritably, Dean thought. He grinned wider.

“How’d you  _know?”_ Sam said from the doorway, and Dean looked at him, then back at Castiel. He shrugged.

“Dunno. I just knew."

\----

Castiel didn’t talk. Didn’t  _move,_ really, for the first few days; he hung out in the living room, drifted listlessly between Dean’s pots and pans like a strange, curious ghost. Dean flapped his hands at him – fucking pain in the ass, if he was cooking, and Dean didn’t know if he could burn him by accident or not – but Castiel would only scoot back for a second or two before he was back again, trailing his warmth over the counter-tops, the chairs; Dean’s forearms, on occasion, which made him shudder.

He communicated in his own strange way, Dean thought, though it was difficult to tell – he came into the kitchen one morning and found Castiel  _admiring himself_ in the reflection from one of the pans, and laughed, and he  _thought –_ though, like he said, it was hard to discern – Castiel flickered in embarrassment, in anger, before he flitted away.

He came back, sure enough. He always did. Dean sat at the kitchen table, looking at him, one night – Sam asleep, Dean eating cereal at 3am. “S’weird.” He murmured, more to himself than to Castiel – he didn’t even know if the angel could  _understand_ him, like this – “You’re still, y’know.  _You.”_ He leaned his chin on one hand, spooning cereal into his mouth with the other. Milk dribbled down his chin, and he wiped it away with the heel of his hand – and he could have sworn, if the little blue globular thing that was Castiel could have rolled its eyes, it would have.

He grinned at it, and it flickered again in distaste (he was guessing) – but inched closer, all the same. Trailed itself over Dean’s hand, and made his skin run hot – from embarrassment, from the heat of Grace – he didn’t know.

 

 ----

After about a week, they noticed something was –  _different._

“He’s bigger.” Sam noted, pointing at Castiel as they pored over books (with Castiel’s not-so-subtle help – his little jabs to their lower backs in the direction of certain shelves) – looking for some way to join him with Jimmy’s body, again (or at least work out why their eyes weren’t melting out of their skulls). Jimmy was the only thing Castiel had been outwardly, truly insistent about – when they prepared to take him outside, to bury him, Castiel had moved quicker than his usual languorous sloth-pace – thrown himself in front of the body,  _buzzed_ like a whine of static, until the two of them covered their ears and gave in. The headquarters had a basement, and it was pretty much an icebox, but it wasn’t a  _freezer._ Who knew how long they had until Jimmy started to rot proper, and Castiel ended up joined with a fucking slimy corpse, instead of whole again.

“Y’think?” Dean looked at Castiel, who was hovering over a text, and jabbing Sam irritably whenever he needed a page turning (which was often).

“Definitely. He was this big at first –“ Sam approximated with his hands – “and now look at him.”

Castiel had grown to about the size of a human head – though the light, the centre of him, blue and almost liquid-looking, surrounded by the haze of pale fire – remained the same size it had always been. “Y’think he’s like a chia pet, or something? He’ll just keep getting bigger?”

Sam shrugged, snorting. “Maybe.”

“Can we fit the fucking Chrysler building in here?” Dean murmured distantly – Castiel butted him in the side of the head, and Dean flapped at him to push him away. “Alright, you little slave driver, I’m  _reading.”_ He flapped the book pointedly, and Castiel seemed to calm down – settled on his book again.

Dean rolled his eyes, looking at Sam. “Is he  _bossier?”_

Castiel butted him again.

\----

Research progressed little, but Castiel – all on his own, it seemed – progressed by leaps and bounds. One minute he was the size of a human head, the next he had a  _tail –_ like a gleaming comet he was a ball of fire and a flaming, licking  _extra bit,_ though he hardly moved like a rocket at all – kept his gentle pace, hung around in the kitchen, kept himself at the side of one of the Winchesters, mostly – usually Dean (But what about  _that_ was a change of pace?). They talked, the three of them, and Castiel contributed more – in his way – as time went on. They could ask him questions with yes/no answers, and he’d answer them, though sometimes it was hard to tell what he was trying to convey.

From what they could glean, he’d had to shed his vessel because of the wards on the headquarters – the place was guarded against angels, stuff Dean and Sam hadn’t even put in themselves, and it had stopped Castiel – envesseled – from coming inside. But, the angel explained, pushing Dean’s hand around on a piece of paper to ‘draw’, it was his name that had granted him entrance. Dean had carved it into one of the walls, hoping it would draw him home – knowing that names had a  _power –_ and it had bade Castiel entrance, though only as his ‘true’ self.

He was weak – this, they knew, from the moment they saw him. Angels were warriors, huge and fierce as the  _sun,_ not flickering like nightlights, not this  _small._ Castiel had made a hell of a journey to get here, though he couldn’t – or wouldn’t – explain exactly what it was that had made him shoot so quickly back to them.

Dean didn’t have it in him to push; to complain. Sam worried about the angel – was he falling? Was this even  _reversible?_ – But Dean was content to have him home, if he was honest. He had both his brother and the angel at his side, in one way or another, and though he might have missed Castiel’s eyes, his bad posture, his ridiculous head-tilting, this was better than nothing. Much better.

He was just tugging his boots off to go to sleep when Castiel drifted in, one night, and floated hesitantly in the doorway. Dean looked up at him.

“Hey, Cas.” He grinned. “You want a glass of water?” he joked, and the angel – he assumed – ignored him. Castiel washed towards him like flotsam on the edge of a wave, moving slow and liquid, and finally stopped a couple of feet away, as if shyly toeing the carpet. Dean rolled his eyes. “What? C’mon, man.” He gestured with a hand. “Losing Jimmy made you  _bashful,_ or something? C’mon.”

Castiel drifted closer; settled, surprising him, against his outstretched hand. “Fuckin’ weird.” Dean murmured. “This whole thing.” The pressure against his hand seemed to agree with him.

Its light brightened, then darkened again. Dean laughed gently at it – he was  _endearing_ like this, like something out of some weird Disney flick. “I missed you, man.” He said, and laughed on the edge of it, because Castiel stopped stock still. “Don’t look so shocked.” He muttered, embarrassed, and Castiel pushed harder against his hand. “Don’t make a big deal about it, either.” He said, quieter, and Castiel  _hummed,_ the strangest fucking noise Dean had ever heard – and drifted quickly towards Dean’s face, and pressed himself to Dean’s cheek, and then drew away.

Dean looked at him, one eyebrow lifted. “I’m not gonna ask.” He muttered – but covered the spot that Castiel touched with his hand, his skin shockingly, startlingly warm. “But – I get it.” He offered, gently, and the angel pulsed, once, and left the room. Dean laughed to himself, hand still on his own face, and drew it away slowly to pull his shirt off, to get into bed. He looked back, once, at the doorway - then snorted at himself, and pulled the covers up, around him. “Fuckin’ weirdo.” He murmured to himself.

The skin on his cheek, warm as comfort, warm as  _fire,_ heated his pillow all night long.


	2. Chapter 2

“Aren’t you a little… I dunno,  _concerned?”_ Sam asked him one night, when Castiel was off doing god knows what. Dean looked at him, and shrugged.

“Maybe a little. I mean – it’s weird that he’s not inside his body, or whatever, but at least he’s  _here.”_ He tapped his fingers on the table in front of him, turning pages idly in the huge book Castiel had directed him to. It didn’t tell him much; something about symbols and sigils, something about demons. Honestly, he thought Cas was starting to grasp at straws; his tugging them around the library had gotten less and less confident, and though he still bugged Sam to turn pages for him with the same vehemence, he flickered low, and often, when he read.

“Yeah, but he  _can’t_ get back inside his body.” Sam corrected him, thumbing the edge of a page, chin in hand. “And he’s not in heaven, so what – what if he lost his Grace?”

Dean looked at him, eyebrow raised. “Then what’s floating around in here?”

Sam’s mouth twisted. “I don’t know. I just-“ he lifted his chin from his hand, to gesture with his hands.  “Like, if angels are all  _Grace,_ then what’s left behind when they Fall? Gotta be  _something.”_

“So you think that’s all that’s left? Just – Cas? And it looks like that?”

“Maybe it’s his soul.” Sam said quietly, looking at the table. Dean shook his head.

“He hasn’t got one.”

“You really believe that?” Sam replied incredulously, and Dean bit his retort in half in his mouth. “After all he’s done, you don’t think he’s got one?”

“He used to have a  _lot_ of ‘em.” Dean muttered bitterly, and Sam sighed.

“Not what I mean, and you know it.” He drummed his fingers on the thin pages of the book he was trying to read, then lifted the edge of it, and slammed it shut. “M’tired. Gonna go to bed.”

“Okay.” Dean watched him leave the library, and flicked pages back and forth. He wasn’t reading; not anymore – his eyes blurred, the text with them, and it was so tiny anyway that it might as well have been drawled on by ants. He was too tired for this shit – he lifted himself from the table with both palms, pushed himself up, and followed suit, trailing down the hallway to his room.

It was moments before Castiel drifted in, and Dean had been expecting him. He lifted his head from where he was brushing his teeth at the bathroom mirror, and nodded at the angel, who stood in the doorway, waiting for permission to come in. “Hey, Cas.” He said softly, and Castiel inched his way into the room.

There was no explaining it - the sense of  _security,_ of  _warmth,_ that Castiel brought with him to Dean’s ‘home’ in the headquarters - he just  _felt it,_ like stepping into a warm shower; and hell, he wasn’t going to argue. Having Cas back felt  _good,_ and if things were a little weird between them – a little …unorthodox – then he wasn’t fucking complaining. At least, as he had said to Sam, he was still  _there._

But they  _were._ Unorthodox, that is. Ever since that weird little  _press_ against his cheek, Castiel had gotten more bold.

Only when they were alone; he’d set himself on Dean’s shoulder, against his face, and make Dean’s skin heat up; he’d skim himself against Dean’s arm when they were walking down a hallway; hover around his head whilst he cooked, closer than ever before. He was getting bigger, too; now he was about the size of one of the chairs in the kitchen – almost human-sized again – and he existed as a strange, shimmering  _mass_ of celestial fog, with that beating heart in the centre of him, darker than the rest of him, and Dean could swear he could hear it  _beat_ when Cas was close. In the bathroom, Castiel lingered in the doorway – Dean rinsed, spat, and turned to face him. He leaned against the sink.

“Cas, can I ask you a question?”

The angel stilled, in the doorway – his edges rippled, but he didn’t move away. Dean took that as permission.

“Did you Fall?”

Castiel shimmered briefly – the light in the centre of him ebbed and brightened again, and he wavered, in the air. Dean bit his lip. “I mean – if you don’t want to tell me, that’s cool, but it’s pretty much an answer.”

Castiel backed slightly out of the doorway, and Dean stood up straight – reached out for him. “Cas.” He said, and the angel almost  _slumped –_ he came back. “So that’s a yes.”

Castiel pulsed, though only weakly. Dean stepped forward before he knew what he was doing – reached out a hand to him, and let the angel come over to meet his palm. “I’m so sorry, Cas.” He said softly, and wished they could  _speak –_ wished Castiel could talk about it, at least rage and  _scream_ about it, but instead he was – this. This silent, ephemeral thing, hot and  _buzzing_  like static against Dean’s hand. “We’ll get you in your body, Cas. I promise.” He said softly, and Castiel simply pressed himself slightly harder against Dean’s fingers. “You probably don’t believe me, but we will, okay? We will.”

Castiel gave one last, almost defeated push against Dean’s palm, and then left the bathroom – like all the other times, the heat against Dean’s skin didn’t leave, right away.

He brought the palm to his mouth – to his neck. He could swear he could feel Castiel’s pulse there, beating, on his hand – but it was soft, only a whisper, and eventually it ebbed away.

\---

Once Dean told Sam Castiel had fallen, Sam was a Man With A Plan, which to Dean brought with it a fair amount of relief. Binding a  _human soul_ to a body apparently required a lot less consent than it did with an angel, and though the concept of using departed Jimmy’s corpse as a meat-puppet put Dean on edge, morally, he figured no one was using it.

They pored through books for binding spells until Castiel found them and  _surged_ at Sam’s hands, knocking the book from his grip. The static whine started up again as he bubbled different shades of blue in front of them, his edges trembling – with embarrassment or with rage, they weren’t sure. Sam calmly picked the book up, set it on the table, and looked at Dean. “He didn’t know I knew?”

Dean shook his head, and shrugged. “I dunno. I didn’t think it was a secret.” Castiel’s low drone of static pitched higher, burning through his eardrums, and he covered his ears with his hands. “Jesus, Cas, I’m  _sorry!_ I thought it would help if Sam knew what we were dealing with!”

Castiel – obviously – said nothing. He stared them down as best he could, the shapeless cloud trembling with undisguised anger, and Sam held out his hands, a placatory gesture. “Look, Cas, I think we can help you now, okay? There’s binding rituals, witchcraft we can do.”

But the noise of static only grew louder; the papers spread out on the table began to curl and flap, and the air started to feel like electricity; the hair on the skin of Dean’s arms, on the back of his neck, stood to attention.  

“Cas!” he said, annoyed because the angel was throwing a bitchfit and they were only trying to  _help –_ but Castiel paid him no mind and fled the room, throwing papers and books everywhere as he skimmed past the table, putting everything in disarray. Sam sighed, when he was gone.

“He’s probably just upset.” He said, bending to gather the fallen papers in his arms, and Dean shrugged.

“Maybe he’s embarrassed.” He shrugged, and Sam looked at him mildly.

“Well, you talk to him. We can’t exactly help him if he’s  _hiding_.”

Dean nodded. “I’ll uh –“ he looked down the hallway where Castiel had gone, leaving destruction behind him, and swallowed. “I’ll give him some time to cool off, though, first.”

Sam shrugged, and sat at the table, opening the book in front of him. “Whatever. You know him better than I do.”

\---

Dean almost laughed, when he eventually found Castiel – he was under the fucking  _couch,_ of all places, sulking like a five-year-old, and Dean didn’t do very well at stifling the amusement in his voice 

“Cas?” he said, tentatively, and the light from beneath the couch shrank, slightly. Dean sank to the ground and peered under the couch. “Cas, c’mon, don’t be mad at me.” He sighed. “I’m sorry. I know you’re not huge on this whole …fallen thing.” He paused, when Castiel didn’t respond. “It’s  _Sam,_ though, Cas. You’ve seen him at his worst, you know? You don’t have to be embarrassed.”

Castiel flickered crossly but slid out from under the couch in a long, silver-blue stream, like water in anti-gravity. He floated, for a moment, in mid-air – and then he started to drift away from Dean again. Dean thrust his arm out and caught him – Castiel was too strong for him, even like this, but he stopped, nonetheless.

“C’mon, Cas.” Castiel was so fucking  _warm,_ so  _weird_ against his hand _._ “You’ll be in your body again soon, okay? It’ll be fine.”

Castiel’s light dulled slightly; he pulled gently out of Dean’s grip, and then – as Dean watched – he thinned himself into a horizontal shape; still translucent, still strange like liquid, but lengthways he touched the ground, and was almost as tall as Dean; the centre of him still undulated like flesh, but the sides of him, spread, started to take shape;  as he watched, Castiel started to shape himself into some approximation of a human being; his skin like a network of pinpoint stars, blue, he separated limbs for himself -  arms and legs, almost; separate ‘limbs’ on the column that was his strange, hazelike form, a teardrop-bulb of a head. He reached for Dean, and Dean – stock still, watching this strange display, elegant and fluid as it was – let him touch his face.

The touch was different this time. Not just hot,  _scorching,_ and it made his entire body  _thrum._ Castiel was clearly getting stronger, clearly healing, and as he washed closer – moved as one sinuous thing, not looking human at all but more like a spirit, more like a strange, starry  _god –_ Dean could only watch, breath stilling in his throat.

“Cas.” He said quietly, because he could feel – fucking  _everything,_ that strange starburst of excitement, the gloomy push of woe. Could feel Castiel’s ‘hands’ against his face, palmsized flourishes of  _heat_ against his skin, and feel his guilt, and his  _anger_ at the injustice, and something else, too, like strange tepid water in his lungs, like a heart-beat flush over his ribs. Castiel leaned his featureless ‘head’ towards Dean’s, and just  _pressed –_ enveloped Dean’s body with his own, covered the whole of Dean with himself, and then  _sank_ below the layer of his skin.

Dean breathed in sharply, and could not move. “Cas.” He said, again, more urgently, because this was fucking  _weird –_ Castiel was half out of him, half in the cool air, and half  _beyond_ him, half  _inside_ his body and Dean could feel it – feel how warm he was, how powerful, how fucking  _old,_ somehow. Knew, for the first time, how truly ancient Castiel was – and how truly  _sad._

He swallowed – it didn’t feel like an intrusion, or a violation; felt natural as a warm embrace, but with Castiel against his atoms, Castiel fucking  _pulsing_ against his ribs, it was – intense.

It wasn’t like being possessed – wasn’t like having an alien presence rush in, wasn’t like giving up control. It was just Cas, the very essence of him, pushed half-in, half-out of Dean’s body, and Dean could feel himself – with a flush so fierce it tore its way up his spine – growing hard under the pure, wrenching  _connection_ that was Castiel’s touch.

“Cas, you have to – Cas, I understand, okay, I –“ he reached both hands up and put his hands on where the angel’s waist would be, if he had one,  and pushed him away. “Cas, I’m sorry this happened, okay? All of it.” He didn’t mention the tightness below his waist – how his legs were shaking like he’d come already, his palms sweaty at his sides. “I don’t get it – I probably never will – but –“ he sighed and his heart was hammering in his chest, his breaths coming shallow. “I’ll try. Just don’t – spring that on me again, okay? Warn me, next time.” he laughed gently. “That’s an – interesting trick.”

The shape that was Castiel reached up, and trailed a hand over his cheek – pulsed bright, then dulled again. Dean swallowed around the razor-sharp lump in his throat.

Castiel gave a brief, strange little approximation of a nod, then withdrew – became loose and foglike again, and drifted away, leaving Dean fucking  _exhausted_ from the strain, alone in the headquarters living room, fucking tenting his jeans.

What he was mostly left with, though, was the endless fucking melancholyCastiel had pressed against him; the acute, desperate sadness that only comes with once being something incomprehensible, and being reduced to something so small, so fragile, so  _mortal,_ that it filled you with shame.

Dean ran a hand through his hair and went to the kitchen on weakened legs, to get himself a glass of water. He stared through the doorway, heart beating a furious tattoo against his ribs, but Castiel did not return.


	3. Chapter 3

Worse than the new-forged tension between him and Castiel were the  _dreams._

There had rarely been a period in Dean’s life when he  _didn’t_ dream about something, over and over, obsessively; whether it was his mother, hellhounds, or just memories of the things he did and saw on a daily basis – but apart from waking him in a cold sweat, they rarely made him  _uncomfortable._ Scared, yes; sometimes fucking  _terrified,_ but not uncomfortable.

Over the week after Castiel got – for lack of a better word – inside him, Dean dreamt altogether differently to how he was accustomed.

Dreams that roiled; dreams that  _breathed_ , dreams like beasts that curled around his mind, that thrummed through his lungs, that woke him breathing heavy, wet on his legs, on his belly, running over his thighs, sweat and come. Dreams that stayed close the day after, and that made him avert his eyes from Castiel – Castiel, shimmering and sexless, probably only distantly aware of what he’d done.

It was like, somewhere inside him, a dam had broken – and now what came out in waves, and waves and waves was  _water,_ water thick and boiling like blood.

He began to find it difficult to sit still in Castiel’s presence; yes, there had been something between them, maybe always – you didn’t search the whole of Purgatory for eleven months for someone you considered an  _acquaintance,_ after all – but now it was starkly, scarily obvious in his mind, invading his thoughts unasked, and Dean, despite himself, was equal parts mad and  _scared._

Sam found the solution a couple of days after what Dean had started calling in his mind, The Incident, and told Dean in private. Castiel had been recalcitrant, to say the least, since his little outburst in the library. He was helpful but only to an extent; he kept close to them both, still, but was uncommunicative, obstinate when asked questions, and took to hiding himself in dark corners. He wasn’t getting any bigger, though, despite Dean’s fears; he was getting  _darker –_ in colour, in degrees of transparency – but other than that, he didn’t seem to change much. Sam worried for him; Dean remained carefully, embarrassedly quiet about the matter.

“It’s actually pretty simple.” Sam told him, pointing at the various texts he’d found, outlining the ritual. He wasn’t wrong; it was a blood-binding ritual, but nothing they’d never done before. They’d need to go out for a couple of things – herbs and the like, it just wasn’t witchcraft if you didn’t feel like you were making bolognese – but otherwise, the two of them felt like it was going to go fairly well – as long as Castiel behaved himself.

That was the question, though.

Dean dreaded having conversations with him; hadn’t really spoken to him,  _definitely_ hadn’t touched him, since having Castiel beyond the barrier of his skin, since feeling his sadness, his  _warmth,_ and being overwhelmed; after jerking off in his room afterwards, guilty and burning in the pit of his stomach, something that made him feel weak at the fucking knees. There were times when Castiel, envesselled, had looked at him a certain way and made him feel the same – a clutch of heat in his abdomen, a desperate need to find somewhere private – but not like that. Not even  _close._

Sam looked at him oddly, as he had been doing for the past few days. “You tell him.” He said, carefully, meaning the ritual. “It’ll go over better, coming from you.”

Dean swallowed, and couldn’t think of a reason to refuse.

\----

He cornered the angel eventually; knew that Castiel had deliberately been ignoring him, for whatever reason. Castiel made the mistake of drifting past Dean’s doorway whilst he was in his room, and he looked up from where he was sitting, on the bed, immediately – could feel him, a whisper of static along the hallway, though Cas had no footsteps – no  _feet_ – to speak of.

“Cas.” He called, and the angel paid him no mind; he said it again, “Cas,” louder, and Castiel continued on, though slowly. Dean sighed.

“Do you know how much I fucking missed you?” He said - uncontrollable, bursting from his throat.

The shape of Castiel, in the doorway, halted. “I thought you were dead.” The words were strung thin, quiet. Castiel lingered. “I  _always_ end up thinking you’re dead.” He said bitterly, and Castiel came into the room properly; drifted up close, shimmered in Dean’s line of sight, so all he could concentrate on was the  _hum_ Castiel made; his beating centre, the warmth spiralling out of him in waves. The strange, distant pang that curled in the pit of his stomach.

It was hard to be this close and not remember how it  _felt_ to have Cas inside him – to have Cas touch him at all. “Are you mad at me?” he said, quieter, asking the question he had been rolling around in his mind since what had happened between them.

Castiel flickered  - laughter, maybe, or annoyance. Maybe this was his version of the head-tilt; Dean didn’t know. He looked up at him from where he was sitting, on the bed, and Castiel was a long, oval shadow; rounded at the edges; almost touching his knee.

“Cas?” he said, begging for an answer; was he upset? Disgusted? Apathetic?  _Flattered?_

But Castiel stood, just  _looking_ at him, and gave no answer – he reached out; a long, shimmering thread, a cord of his self breaking away from the column of his ‘body’ – and fit it against Dean’s cheek, like a hand. Dean pulled back, away from him, his face flourishing hot.

“No, see – “ he sighed. “That doesn’t fix anything Cas, doesn’t explain a single fucking thing. What’s  _wrong_ with you, man? Do you not  _want_ your body back? Do you want – do you want to go home?” he said, unsure. Castiel wavered where he was. “If you wanna go home, Cas – if you want to go to heaven – then we’ll find a way, okay? Me and Sam. Whatever you want.” His voice slipped quieter, tripping on words he didn’t want to say. “Whatever’ll make you happy.”

Castiel shifted; curled in on himself, sank to the ground as if kneeling, almost; so he and Dean were face to face. Then – slowly – he reached for Dean’s face again – Dean flinched away on instinct, the movement too reminiscent of something that happened not all that long ago; but he controlled it, held it in. Let Castiel touch his face, spread a warm weight across his cheekbone.

This close, Dean could  _definitely_ feel his heart beating; could feel every point of contact between them; Castiel touching, just barely, his knee; Castiel’s warm, iridescent ‘skin’ against his face, the edge touching his mouth; endlessly, endlessly  _boiling_ hot. He mumbled something – then said, again, louder, “Is this a warning?” before Castiel’s hand  _sank_ into him, heat flaring inside his belly like a twist to his gut; like being thrown quickly backwards. “Cas.” He choked, because it was almost the same as before, almost enough; this definite contact from something so ethereal, so strange; and yet it felt like Castiel, like nothing else. He even  _smelled_ the same.

Castiel folded himself closer, slow – stopped, at increments, and Dean was sure he was  _looking_ at him, though he had no eyes; he sank into Dean’s knees, pressing closer; enveloped his legs, sending a  _roil_ through Dean, a strange, nervous thrill. He stopped, inches from Dean’s chest, inches from the space between his thighs, and Dean just sat, looking at him; trying to breathe through the sensation.

“What’re you waiting for?” he said, the barest whisper, and Castiel waited no longer.

He moved like liquid; sank into Dean’s pores, into his flesh, like it wasn’t even there. If Dean didn’t know better, he’d have thought Castiel was going to pass straight through, but instead he simply sank below the barrier of his skin, bringing with him everything he felt  - nerves a desperate shudder in his belly, anger and frustration and then – a quieter, paler sensation –  _joy,_ that made Dean’s toes curl against the floor. “Cas.” He said, again, more urgently – his gut  _boiled,_ his skin sweated; everything was clammy, sticky heat, and Castiel was inside him, sitting against his lungs, wrapped around his heart; inside him like a fever, like being submerged in the hot sea.

Castiel  _pulsed_ when that warm, strange centre of him finally sank through Dean’s chest; Dean felt it come to rest against his lungs, against his own heart, and he was painfully, painfully hard in his jeans from it, almost oversensitised, his hands keeping him upright where he sat, curling and uncurling against the sheets. “Cas.” He breathed again, and clenched his fists tighter against the bed when Castiel  _moved_ inside him, a long, sinuous shudder; filled every gap inside Dean, from the tip to the very root of him, heavy and warm and like light.

The last inch of Castiel passed the border of his flesh, and then Dean heard it – a vast, sleepy murmur. Castiel’s voice.

_Dean._ And Dean laughed from relief – he'd thought, distantly, that maybe it somehow wasn’t Castiel at all, despite what he felt – but this was proof, unequivocal; that was Castiel’s voice rumbling against the insides of his temples, Castiel’s deep, reverberating murmur that rolled through his whole body like a physical sensation.

“This is really fucking-“ he breathed in sharply when Castiel shifted again, a short spike of pleasure spiralling up from beneath him. “ _Weird,_ Cas.”

He could swear he felt Castiel  _laugh. I missed you._ He hummed, lazy, and Dean felt a little tiny  _push_ from within his chest, tipping him backwards, just a little – a suggestion, nothing more.

He breathed in, shakily. His arms trembled, taut against the sheets – and then he let them go, sank backwards; arms full of Castiel, chest, gut, head, legs; everything. He sank back against the bed, as Castiel had sunk into him – slow – and then lay there with his eyes closed, facing the ceiling, trying to breathe through the sensation.

“So you’re what, telepathic now?” He murmured – breath catching as Castiel curled inwards on himself, in Dean’s gut, and then stretched out fully again.

_I’m inside you._ Castiel said blankly, as if it was obvious, and Dean – well, Dean supposed it was.

“You uh –“ Castiel moved, again, “Jesus. No wonder you don’t do this all the f- Cas,” he gasped, and Castiel, flush against his ribs, just moved again; rolled like a wave, from Dean’s toes to his temples, hot and firm inside him, filling him up. “Is this meant to feel like –“ Like falling, like being coiled tightly as a spring. He couldn’t find the words.

_I don’t know._ Castiel murmured, and shifted again, making Dean’s hips buck on the bed.  _I’ve never done it before._

“Course you haven’t.” Dean muttered darkly under his breath - then bit back another gasp, breath hitching higher, hands scrabbling for purchase at his sides. “Cas, you  _know_ what you’re doing to me, right?” he murmured – the door was open, if only slightly, and he dreaded to think what he looked like right now; gasping and clutching at his own bed, alone; a sheen of sweat on his skin, his dick pressing wet against his pyjama pants, pulsing slicks of pre-come against the waistband. His knees raised, heels pushing against the mattress, toes curling and uncurling for lack of something – some _one_ – to push against.

Castiel hummed, gentle, inside him – moved very,  _very_ deliberately, again, and sent a spike, a  _wave,_ of sensation through Dean so strongly that he cried out. “That’s a yes,” he managed, gasping, “Cas.” He clutched the sheets tighter and – unable to stand it, taking Castiel’s awareness as permission – drew his hand shakily from the sheets to work his hand beneath the soft waistband of his pants, and buck desperately into the tunnel of his own hand, desperate for the touch of  _something, anything –_ Castiel, inside him, jerked at the contact.

Dean laughed gently – this was so fucked  _up,_ Castiel inside him, Castiel nestled against his fucking bones – but it didn’t  _feel_ it, didn’t feel wrong, and he’d never felt less alone in his life. “You feel that?” he said; mumbled it, turning his face against the sheets, and Castiel, unable to make true noise, sent a jolt of pleasure rolling up his spine in answer.

Cheeks flushed – flushed from the inside out, Castiel burning him up – he pressed the side of his face, hard, into the mattress, and moved his hand up and down, fast, on his dick; thumbed at the head, smeared sweat and pre-come all over himself, gasping a mouthful of cotton whenever Castiel  _rolled_ inside him, in response. For a while all he could hear was his own name, inside his head, blurring thought – Castiel, packed tight inside him, filling every inch of him, murmuring his name to the inside of his flesh, his heart so close it was almost  _touching_ Dean’s – and Dean had missed him, hadn’t realised quite how  _much_ until that moment. He wished – abstractly, distantly, bucking harder, faster into his own grip, syllable-less groans muffled by the sheets – that Castiel could stay like this, inside him, for a little longer; that Dean could keep them like this, inseparable, close. Make  _sure_ he’d never be lost again.

As soon as he completed the thought, it was over – his body tensed, cresting, and Castiel inside him -ragged and hotter than before, scorching against his ribs – made no sound but whited out against his brain, pulsed so hard and so suddenly that the orgasm was torn from Dean’s flesh, stripped out of his very bones, and he came over his hand, gasping the single syllable of Cas’ name with his mouth wide open. His breathing stilled; stopped for a second, heart pounding against his ribs, Castiel’s centre beating in tandem with his own – he remained poised, for a second, on the precipice – and then his breath rushed back and Castiel relaxed inside him, and he let go of his own dick to wipe his hand clean on his shirt, fingers almost too tired even to brush against his own chest.

He lay with his face pressed into the bedclothes, and opened his eyes only slowly, after a time; only after he felt the strange sensation of Castiel pulling away; a weird, acute  _emptiness_ that he would have chased with his hands, were he not so fucking exhausted.

“Cas.” He murmured, and turned, with difficulty, to face the ceiling again. Castiel was above him – he sat up and Castiel moved back – he pulled himself (fucking mess that he was, heart still thundering in his chest) up to sit, and folded his legs indian-style. He reached for Castiel with a shaky hand, and the angel didn’t move back.

“Jesus.” Dean pressed his hand to the heat of Castiel, and said, “Is that the only way we can talk?” softly – and Castiel reached back, for him. Touched his shoulder.

_No._ he said, though it was distant; not like having him inside. Nowhere near as loud, as clear.  _Like this, too._

Dean wondered if they could have just done that all along – if Cas had just been looking for an excuse to get inside him – and then decided he didn’t really mind, either way.

“Are you okay, Cas?” he asked immediately – and Castiel’s voice, in his head, huffed a laugh.

_Of course._

“So what do you  _want?”_ he asked – then realised what that sounded like, and backpedaled. “I mean, do you want to go home? Do you – what do you want?” he said. Castiel’s grip tightened on his shoulder.

_I want to go home._ Castiel said, softly. Dean nodded.

“Okay.” He breathed in. “Then we’ll get you home."

Castiel pushed himself close; lay just on the border of Dean’s skin, like a shaft of sunlight warming him.  _Then do the ritual._ He said, and Dean laughed, surprised.

“ _Here,_ home.” He said, and the assent came from Castiel as a feeling, rather than words; a soft glow from the beating blue heart inside him. “ _Here_.” The little glow, again; Dean reached an arm around him; pressed his palm to as much of the angel as he could. “You’re such a cryptic little  _fuck.”_

Castiel laughed – but he pulled back, taking his warmth with him, and ebbed above the bed, darkening. He reached out and touched Dean’s shoulder, again.

_I’ll be human._ He said, and Dean nodded.  _I_ am  _human._ He finished, and Dean nodded again, at a loss for words.

“It’ll be okay.” He assured him. “We’ll work it out.”

Castiel looked at him for a long moment, then bent over him, and pressed part of himself to Dean’s forehead, like a kiss. He started to draw away from Dean’s shoulder – said one more thing, as a parting gift. 

_I suppose we always do._


	4. Chapter 4

He looked smaller on the floor of the basement; his body uncovered for the first time since they’d dragged him down here, dark hair unkempt and stark against his pallid, bloodless forehead. Under him was the long plastic tarp they’d used to encase him, a makeshift shroud.

The days hadn’t been kind to Jimmy’s body – he was sunken, his eyes collapsed inwards; his skin held the strange, ghoulish tinge of a thing that was  _lifeless,_ and though Dean had expected to feel a twinge of nostalgia, seeing the body – the suit Castiel had worn for so long – he felt instead a tangible disconnect; the sense that somehow this body wasn’t, had  _never_ been Castiel, never been his friend.

Castiel himself loomed in the corner of the room, on the stairs leading to the basement. He was a long oval, like a draped, starry sheet; he curved in on himself as if lamenting, and he was tall now – taller than Sam, brushing the high edges of doorways as he swept through them. Dean looked back at him, briefly – Castiel straightened a little, but gave no indication that he was looking back. The two brothers, knelt either side of this strange bag of flesh, looked at each other with faces drawn.

“He looks-“

“Yeah.” Dean murmured. He smelt, though not as badly as they’d feared; but to all purposes Jimmy looked like a corpse, not even just a mortal. Not anymore. Dean’s mouth tightened as he looked down at Jimmy’s greyed, staring eyes. They were wrinkled, fluidless, and the thought of touching them with a naked hand made bile crawl up the back of his throat. Sam glanced at Cas, but said nothing.

“Can we make him look a little less-“ Dean pulled a face, trying to communicate  _fucking gross_ with a downward twitch of his mouth.

“I don’t know.” His brother replied, turning back to the body.

Castiel made no sound as he rose and crossed the room to meet them. His long shape was strange now – at first he’d been disneyfied, maybe even  _cute,_ but now he was a stretched thing, like a cult member with their robes drawn around them; he was warm when the edges of him skirted Dean’s side – familiar, and  _Cas_ all over – but now so much more reminiscent of the thing he’d been, the thing he was no longer.

Dean looked at him, and a tendril of Cas curled out from his centre, hovered over the body – fit itself over Jimmy’s dead eyes like a sleep-mask, blotting them out. Dean expected something to happen beneath it, but when Castiel drew away, he was unchanged. The three of them exchanged grim looks.

“What do you wanna do, Cas?” Sam asked him, and Castiel slumped, formless, as if melting – then straightened again. He reached for Dean’s shoulder, and pressed through his shirt, inside him.

 _Do it anyway._ Said his voice, in Dean’s mind, and Dean opened his mouth to protest, but Castiel shoved him.  _Please._ He said, and Dean looked down at the body between them.

“He says do it.” He told his brother, and Sam nodded hesitantly.

“Okay. If that’s what he wants.”

\----

The ritual itself was mostly blood based – Dean’s, because Jimmy’s was mostly dried, and because they had no idea if Sam’s less-than-mortal blood would make a difference to the process.

It was standard practise, bleeding into a bowl; a little went a fairly long way, and when mixed with the other ingredients – with pomegranate, the seeds plump, the flesh thick and slick, among other things – it was a thick paste, brightly red, strange and tribal as Sam dipped two fingers into the bowl they used to collect it, and daubed it onto Jimmy’s cold, shrunken skin.

He drew the sigils on carefully, Dean holding the book out to him – a traced pattern across the canvas of his chest, a strange little map that began at his forehead; that ran down the slope of his nose, and sunk into the hollows of his cheeks, the base of his throat. It was messy work, not pretty at all, and when they were done – leaving the body a strange approximation of a Greek myth; an offering to Persephone, covered in wet pomegranate seeds – they sat, and they waited.

They drew Castiel’s name on, just in case; no longer an angel, Castiel no longer needed permission to possess, but they guessed that it was better to be safe than sorry. Castiel stood quiet and strange over the body, in the cold basement; he ebbed and pulsed, casting blue light. He looked to Dean, and to his brother, in turn, and Dean almost stopped him – almost reached his arm out, almost said  _you don’t have to – we can carry on like this –_ but his impulse came too late; Castiel had sunk into Jimmy’s temples, into his chest, in three separate strands of waning light; he had poured himself into the body like thick blood into a jar, and as he went inside Jimmy’s body pulsed blue, his thin skin shining an eerie glow, ribs and bones dark shadows that Castiel’s light illuminated from inside.

When Castiel was all but gone – when the thin, wispy tail of him poured in – Dean’s heart tightened in his chest. His breath stopped.

And then the shape, the creature that had lived with them for so long, vanished inside Jimmy’s body – and Jimmy closed his eyes.

\---

The rest was a waiting game. They carried him slowly upstairs – the flesh was warm, but sloppy with rotting, stale and putrid-smelling, grey and wet and  _slippery_ beneath Dean’s fingers. He was heavier – weighed down by Castiel inside him – but he did not move, and he breathed only lightly, chest moving just a little; lips parted so slightly that they might as well not have been open at all.

They laid him down in the room Dean had always considered  _his –_ spare and empty, it was a cold, listless place, but so too was Castiel, like this – unconscious, covered in blood and fruit, naked until they pulled the bedsheets over him, up to his middle.

They stood there in the room in silence once he was upstairs – looked down at his hideous, caved-in body, the rhythm of his shallow breaths. Dean left the room without a word, and came back with a chair. He set it at Castiel’s bedside, then sat down in it heavily, facing the bed.

“I’ll take first shift.” He said tiredly, voice hollow and quiet, and Sam nodded.

“Sure.” He said softly, and put a hand on Dean’s shoulder. Dean didn’t shrug it away. “You want coffee or something?”

Dean looked up at him. “Thanks.”

\---

He fell asleep.

He didn’t mean to, but Castiel just kept  _breathing_ and though his eyes flickered beneath their lids; though he was undeniably  _alive,_ Dean left his coffee untouched, unable to swallow, and ended up slumped in his chair with his head tilted against his own shoulder, snoring into the open air.

He woke to nothing – started awake from strange dreams, and opened his eyes to see Jimmy’s body, with Cas inside, still motionless and wan against the sheets. Dean thought maybe he looked a little different – fuller, maybe. Less sallow – but it was hard to tell, and he didn’t know if it was wishful thinking.

Truth be told, he was fucking terrified.

Not about Castiel never waking – though the possibility lurked in the corners of his mind – but about what he would  _be_ when he woke.

Human. Like Dean had never really known him; human, and  _solid,_ and perhaps no longer truly his.

He knew Cas had meant what happened between them; knew he meant the touches after, the way he kept close to Dean’s side, but  _grounded_ ; not able to float, not able to break beyond the barrier of his  _own_ flesh, let alone someone else’s – chained to the ground as Jimmy was chained to him, sealed inside a prison not of iron, but flesh – would he be the same creature? Would he want the same things?

 

Would he  _cope?_

Dean kneaded his forehead with his hands, and looked up when Sam came in. “Go sleep.” His brother told him, and Dean rose from his seat gratefully, and left to lie in silence on his own cool sheets, hands folded over his chest, eyes open.

\---

Dean stayed away from the bedroom where Castiel was, in the days after. Sam let him. He busied himself with trawling the internet for a case; with checking up on Kevin and Charlie, and making sure everyone was okay. When he couldn’t do that anymore he settled himself in front of the TV; watched everything from  _ER_  to  _Hoarders,_ and changed the channel when the images of the lost, desperate people on the TV looked too familiar. He settled on vapid, spooling dramas, in the end;  _Little House on the Prairie,_ old westerns where people got shot, but were never  _lost_. Never  _fell,_ except off of horses _,_ or in love.

He cloistered himself, and avoided the doorway where Castiel slept; where Sam sat beside him. On the third day, Sam came to see him; he looked exhausted. He said, “I think he’s  _healing.”_ And that was enough to drag Dean back into the room, to look at him with growing dread.

Castiel looked better. No longer dead – he looked flesh-coloured rather than a grey approximation, and his skin, still coated in the blurry sigils, was moving more confidently as he breathed.

“Shouldn’t be more than a couple days now.” Dean muttered, unable to quench the tinge of bitterness in his voice. Sam looked down at him, arms folded and leaning against the doorway. He didn’t ask, but his brows furrowed; he reached for Dean’s arm.

“He’ll be okay.” He said, and Dean nodded silently.

\---

He went in when Sam was asleep, to look at Castiel. The time was close – he could  _feel_ it, almost, in much the same way he  _felt_ that Cas was  _Cas,_ that first time they encountered him in the bunker. He looked at him for a long while – ashen cheeks, coal-black lashes, the endless roving of his eyes beneath his sockets; bad dreams.

He went to the bathroom, got a washcloth, and drenched it in warm water. Then he balled it around his hands, and went back across the hallway, back to Castiel.

He leaned over him, and it felt natural – if somehow otherworldly – to trace Castiel’s skin with the cloth, to rub away Dean’s blood, the remnants of the liquid they’d used to seal him back in his body. They’d left him before now, unsure if the transaction would take, but Dean knew it had, now, and he wanted to do this.

He dipped the soft cloth against Castiel’s throat; carefully sluiced off the purplish-red fluid, the seeds. He rubbed carefully at every bit of Castiel – peeled back the sheets to wash his legs, his hands, his belly and feet. Last of all he washed away the line that drew from Castiel’s forehead to his chin, running thick down his nose. Beneath the warm cloth Castiel’s eyelids flickered, but he didn’t wake; Dean felt his breath on the underside of his arm.

When he was done, he pulled the covers back over Castiel’s body, washed of its markings.

He left the room, to count the days until Castiel opened his eyes.

\---

True to Dean's word, Castiel woke unobtrusively, quietly, on the fifth day after re-entering his vessel. He opened his eyes to an empty room – he didn’t move. When Sam and Dean came in, he sat there blinking owlishly, his skin still pale, but full – no longer partially decomposed.

“I’m awake.” he said blankly, and Dean couldn’t move forward to meet him. Castiel lifted his hands, and peered at them. “I look –“ he flexed his fingers. “I feel strange.” He said quietly, and Dean winced.

“Are you okay?” Sam asked him, walking over, and Castiel continued to blink at his own hands. “You want a glass of water, or something?”

Castiel looked at him, then down at his body. “I’d like to wash. If that’s alright.”

Sam nodded. Castiel turned his eyes on Dean, who lingered awkwardly in the doorway. Dean nodded at him.

“Good to see you, Cas.” He said weakly, and Castiel nodded back at him.

“You, too.” He looked between them. “Could I –“ he gestured vaguely, and they startled simultaneously, backing out of the room to give him privacy. They went down the hallway together – Castiel crossed the hallway to the bathroom, door opening and shutting, echoing after them – and they heard the shower go on, the water hammering against the tiles. Sam looked down at Dean.

“You think he’s okay?”

Dean shrugged. “Who knows?”

“Are  _you_ okay?” Sam asked, a little more confidently, and Dean nodded. 

“I’m gonna – make dinner.” He said, and Sam nodded.

“You want help?”

Dean looked at him gratefully. “Yeah, as long as you don’t fuck it up.”

They were still in the kitchen when Castiel joined them. He walked into the room to hesitant silence – his hair was wet, pushed away from his forehead, tangled around his scalp. He was barefoot, and he wore the clothes they’d left for him – Dean’s old pyjamas; a  _Zeppelin_ tee and drawstring pants. His feet made noises on the cold floor, damp little slapping sounds, and Dean raised his head to look at him, head feeling strange and foggy. Castiel went to the table, and sat down.

“I’m –“ he began, and then faltered. He raised his hands to cradle his head, palms wide, fingers probing against his scalp. “Thankyou.” He said, raising his head, looking at both of them earnestly.

“Hungry, Cas?” Dean asked him carefully, paused where he was with a frying pan in hand, spatula in the other.

“I’m –“ he started again. He laughed, gently. “I think I’ll just sleep. Thankyou.” He said again, just as honestly as before. He rose from the table, though he’d only briefly been in the room; and when he padded out, it was as if the floor beneath him unnerved him; as if he was in a different world.

As the floating creature they’d known for the past few days; as the angel wrapped in human skin they’d known before that; Castiel carried himself with confidence; with pride. Now, to look at him, Dean could never have imagined him so  _small._

\----

They avoided each other. Sat together for meals, but after that point Castiel would disappear to his room, presumably to sleep. He woke late in the day, and went to bed early, if he emerged from his room at all; he ate infrequently, and his voice was quiet, though it sounded at the same pitch as before. He was more a ghost of himself now than he’d ever been without a body, and Dean and Sam watched him like hawks, wary of him, and worried. They spoke about him when he wasn’t present – discussed what he might be going through – but the bottom line was that they didn’t understand. Dean had never been powerful – had only ever been  _lower_ than human – and though Sam knew what it was to be  _strong,_ it was nothing compared to being an angel; to having purpose. The two of them were placed at a loss, and Dean felt helpless against the sadness ebbing out of Castiel; helpless against his need to make it  _right,_ and his inability to do so.

One night, watching something stupid on TV with Sam, he swallowed. The tightening in his chest grew to be too much.

“Cas in his room?” he said brusquely, breathing in courage, and Sam nodded at him, bewildered.

“Yeah, should be.”

“I’m gonna go talk to him.” Dean said – he got up. He left the couch. He reached the hallway outside Castiel’s room, and he stopped just short of knocking on the door, afraid of what was within.

“Cas?” he said quietly to the door, half-hoping he wouldn’t hear. When Castiel’s voice sounded from inside, he leaned against the wood, closing his eyes. “Cas, can I come in?”

He heard Castiel murmur his assent from inside – not a word, just a mumble in the positive. He opened the door by its handle, and found Castiel sitting on the bed, with his hands clasped between his knees. He raised his head to look at Dean.

“You, uh –“ he swallowed. “ _Indiana Jones_ is on.”

Castiel blinked at him, but said nothing. He turned to look at his hands. “I never felt it before.” He said distantly, and Dean closed the door behind him.

“So that’s a no?” he asked, trying for joviality – but the glance Castiel shot him was so bitter that it stopped him in his tracks. “I’m so sorry, Cas.” He said desperately, the words tripping out of his mouth, and Castiel’s shoulders slumped.

“Why?”

Dean walked closer to him – bit the bullet and took the last steps over, to sit on the bed next to him. “I dunno. You wouldn’t be here if not for me, I guess.”

Castiel laughed gently. “That’s true.” He muttered, and surprised Dean when he reached for his hand at his side, wrapping his fingers loosely around the base of Dean’s wrist. “I don’t regret it.” He said, not to Dean but to the floor between his knees. “I’m not – this isn’t anger, what I’m feeling. I know that much.” He laughed again, “Despite my inexperience.” 

Dean waited for him to speak again, and it was only after a few moments that he did.

“It’s grief.” He said, a rush of words, blurry and lost. “What I’m feeling; it’s mourning.” He turned to look at Dean. “I’ve lost something.” He said, softly, and Dean nodded.

“I know.”

“But-“ Castiel moved his hand to press his palm against Dean’s, and laced their fingers together. “That doesn’t mean  _regret._ It doesn’t mean I didn’t make the right choice.”

Dean swallowed. “Did you? Did you - choose?” Castiel nodded. Dean squeezed his hand. “What happened to you, man?”

Castiel shook his head. “It’s a long story.” He said softly, head bowed. “Dean, I didn’t choose  _you.”_ He turned to look at Dean. “Not  _just_ you. I chose  _humanity._ And I would, again.” He said, more confidently. He wasn’t really fooling anyone; Dean knew well enough what it sounded like when you were talking more to yourself than to anyone else.

“Good.” Was all he said in response, and Castiel nodded.

“It is.” He smiled. “It’s good.” He paused, and they sat there, Castiel’s fingers warm in his. “You  _knew_ me.” He said after a while, sounding surprised, and Dean laughed.

“’Course I fucking did.”

“You  _loved_ me.” Castiel said, and Dean swallowed.

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.” He shifted on the bed; it was strange; Castiel’s warm skin, how he had a  _scent_ now, how he moved like he was human. It was strange for him  _not_ to be strange; strange how he seemed no further away, even with the barrier of flesh added. “Are you gonna be okay?” He raised his head – felt nervous, though Castiel had been closer than this, had been inside him, had been wrapped around his bones.

“I’d imagine so.” Castiel said, and shrugged. He leaned forward, and pressed his nose against Dean’s cheek – Dean put his hand on Castiel’s knee. He tilted his head, then, and kissed him for the first time; he was warm; he was saliva, the accidental bump of teeth as he pushed his mouth against Dean’s. He drew back, and looked Dean in the eyes. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

Dean nodded, though his heart twisted in his chest; there was so much more to think about, to consider; what this  _meant,_ what they  _were,_ what it made them both; if Castiel’s grief would get the better of him, if the choice he made was the right one. Dean swallowed them all, for the moment, and tightened his fingers on Castiel’s leg. He kissed him again, brief, and lush.

“You wanna get some food, Cas? S’been a while since you’ve eaten.”

Castiel looked at his hand, where it was linked with Dean’s; the tether that kept him on earth, Dean and his body, both. He nodded, and he disengaged his hand from Dean’s as he stood, then crossed to the bedroom door. Dean followed after, and before he opened it, he cleared his throat gently.

“S’weird.” He said, not for the first time. “You didn't change.”

Castiel smiled at him gratefully, but said nothing; both of them pushed out of the room, into the hallway, and walked side-by-side to the warm kitchen; back to Sam. 


End file.
